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Windows explorer error

post #1 of 15
7/17/06 at 8:09am
Thread Starter 
Ok, I was installing a tryout of photoshop that i'd just downloaded and about halfway through the installation, my windows explorer disappears (no taskbar, no start menu button, no desktop shortcuts, and i could only see the things that I had open...btw, if this is not windows explorer and i have the wrong idea, please correct me).

Now this has happened before...and an error message pops up, i close it quickly without reading it (which now i REALLY regret), and after a few seconds, the "windows explorer" comes right back up. But this time it didnt....

So i restarted my computer (via the button on the front; the way of doing it normally had gone), and went to log on again which worked and then...nothing. All i can see is my background. No taskbar, desktop shortcuts, nothing but my background.

so then i turned it off via the button and ran a disk check (which normally happens after turning it off at the button) and after that i got some error message upon logging on, which said something like "An exception has occurred when loading ???\???\???". Again, i really regret closing this without taking much notice of it, but ignoring error messages is a really annoying habbit of mine.

Does anyone know what i should do, because i have absolutely no idea where to go from here...
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post #2 of 15
7/17/06 at 9:49am
Hi,
Start by pressing ctrl alt del, to get up the task manager menu. Go to processes and delete all the threads that have your username on it, as opposed to the system tag. Then you go to the Applications tab, and select "new task". There you simply write "explorer.exe" and your startmenu and desktop should come back up. Look in your startmenu for items you dont like running, also go Start run msconfig. Look in the startup tab for similar items. Restart and see if it fixed your problem. If so reinstall photoshop and try again. Cheers.
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post #3 of 15
7/17/06 at 10:24am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the reply.

I tried this, and when i tried running "explorer.exe", nothing happened. It was listed in the processes, but the taskbar and everything didnt reappear.

Also, there was one process I couldnt delete. It kept saying I had deleted it, but it was still there.

Any more suggestions? I could list all my processes to see if anyone recognizes any ones that look like viruses or something?
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post #4 of 15
7/17/06 at 10:33am
Thread Starter 


Now this time, upon startup, windows gives me the error message "Your computer is low on virtual memory. Windows is increasing the size of your virtual paging file."

This does not sound good to me...
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post #5 of 15
7/17/06 at 11:30am
Hi, Doesnt sound good, thats for sure. Try downloading Hijackthis which you can run from your usb stick, cd or floppy (no need to install). This one will find all (even hidden) processes on your system, and attempt to turnn them off by your next restart.

Virtual memory is always tricky unless you have tinkered with it. Its supposed to be ok if left alone. You can check out this also by entering sysdm.cpl in your run dialog box. Then go to Advanced, Performance section, Settings, click advanced in new window and go to Virtual memory section. Set this one to Custom size and about 2.5 times the ammount of ram you have. But like I said, you shouldnt have to do this, and so Id think its rather something else wrong.
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post #6 of 15
7/17/06 at 2:57pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, i tried Hijack This, deleted a few things that I didnt think looked right, and restarted.

For a while i thought i was totally ****ed. On first restart, the computer kept displaying this empty error message with the title "Guard" over and over again. On second restart, the computer just switched off after logging on. But on third restart, everything was fine :S

I dont know how this happened, but it did....although after trying to switch back my usual Alienware Invader theme, explorer went down for a second, and then came back up with this message:



Hmm, well anyways, ive kept the regular silver XP theme now, and so far had no probs.
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post #7 of 15
7/17/06 at 3:29pm
hmm, at first I was thinking this was just someone using an older form of Windows, but I see by the start button on the screen shot that it's XP. and I thought XP would automatically restart explorer after it crashed??
are you by any chance almost out of disk space?? and I can't tell if you're running an antivirus program or not
I do see you have firefox though. I'd definitely uninstall that program
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post #8 of 15
7/17/06 at 5:22pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by dman22
are you by any chance almost out of disk space??

Well, ive got 6.88gb left.

Quote:
Originally Posted by dman22
I do see you have firefox though. I'd definitely uninstall that program

Really? I like firefox, had practically no troubles with it all.
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post #9 of 15
7/17/06 at 8:46pm
6.88 Gb should be enough room, but it is getting kinda close..
is there anything you can free up? like maybe move some multimedia files to a CD or DVD?? and maybe also trim off some programs you don't use..

and the firefox thing was a joke. I'm a firefox hater
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post #10 of 15
7/17/06 at 9:01pm
Have you installed any Explorer add-ins? From the looks of it, DEP is killing Explorer because it is most likely doing "something bad".

Since all add-ins run under the Explorer process, if they do something bad, it gets Explorer killed.
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post #11 of 15
7/17/06 at 9:52pm
and I think he knows what he's talking about
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post #12 of 15
7/18/06 at 4:02am
I agree with Revenent. Also, try uninstalling all smaller utility programs you may have installed. Bigger ones (like photoshop ) usually dont mess up your system. Also, try error checking your disk. You right click the harddrive icon, select the "tools" tab and do an error check. On your primary drive, you must restart the machine to finish it. You might as well analyse for diskfragmentation, but again, this will only make the system run more smooth, not fix errors. Lastly, Id try a system diagnostic program or a registry checker - search on google - to find if you have any errors there. While you may have removed the most pressing error somehow, its always risky to leave the system without finding the core of the problem.
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post #13 of 15
7/18/06 at 5:46am
And next time, if you haven't already, get your Photoshop demo from Adobe, and not some random torrent...Or again suffer the consequence...
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post #14 of 15
7/18/06 at 1:22pm
Thread Starter 
heh, i did get the adobe version. Might have been something else that screwed up...at the time i was installing photoshop....meh, everything seems ok now.....

Well, Ill try out some of these suggestions anyways..

Oh, and this is off topic, but i would like to point out that at this time, dman22 has 666 posts, lol. Could it be an omen? Hmmm....
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post #15 of 15
7/18/06 at 2:04pm
damn, now I'm stuck and can't post outside of OT. I like this post count

edit- forgot this section counts for post counts..
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